Apple has recently taken action against apps that violate clause 2.25 of its App Review Guidelines according to PocketGamer, a rule that says no app should replicate functionality of the App Store in order to promote or offer for purchase apps other than your own.
The rules recently saw two high-profile app removals, including AppGratis and AppShopper (which subsequently returned after changes… → Read More
Apple took time to update investors on the status of its ecosystem on today’s call, revealing that it has crossed the 45 billion total app download mark, just over four months after it crossed the 40 billion download mark back in January. Apps are being downloaded at a rate of 800 per second, from a total pool of 850,000 iOS apps in total, with 350,000 apps designed for iPad alone. → Read More
Props are owed to companies like Blackboard and Moodle for being early movers in the educational software space, particularly in helping catalyze innovation in learning management systems (LMS). The problem is, of course, they got their start over a decade ago, and haven’t always elicited raving reviews from students and schools. → Read More
iOS App Discovery Service AppGratis just confirmed that it was indeed pulled from the App Store on Friday. At the time, commentators were left wondering what was wrong with AppGratis’ app. Founder and CEO Simon Dawlat wrote a long blog post explaining the full story. “AppGratis is very much up and running,” Dawlat said. “The reports of our death are greatly… → Read More
Twitter acquired the mini-video-taking app Vine last October before it ever launched, sending everyone into a frenzy about the company getting into the video space. In late January, Twitter finally launched the app to much applause. Since then, it’s gone from being temporarily removed from the featured section due to an issue over adult content to being used in interesting ways by brands… → Read More
Apple pulled discovery service and daily deal app AppGratis from the App Store. So far, AppGratis is not communicating on the issue and users can only speculate about what the issue is. Sometimes, Apple pulls an app because its latest update crashes or because the app uses a private API. Then, the developer has to submit a new release to return to the App Store. But there could be a bigger issue. → Read More
iOS calendar app Sunrise received its first update a month after its release, bringing more info and flexibility to your calendar. The team has pushed the LinkedIn integration a step forward by bringing the entire profile into the app. Now you can check previous work experiences and education from Sunrise’s interface. “The feedback we got from our launch is that Sunrise really changes… → Read More
BitNami, a Y Combinator company, has announced that it will focus more on being an app store for server software. The goal is to provide customers with a Google Play or Apple App Store experience that can be accessed on their own infrastructure.
The BitNami platform provides the server infrastructure that companies would otherwise have to build out themselves to connect apps. → Read More
Apple has made a tweak to the way it shows that free apps that have in-app purchases, the Guardian noted today. The new notice appears under the price bar and the app icon in app listings on iTunes on the desktop, though it doesn’t yet appear in the mobile App Store or on the web-based iTunes application pages. The change comes after a number of high-profile complaints re: accidental spending on… → Read More
App store analytics firm Distimo released a new report today which examines the effect that price changes, and specifically price drops, have on iOS app sales. When the price drops for iPhone apps, on average, cumulative downloads grow by 1,665 percent for five days following the decrease. Not surprisingly, a price drop is more effective on the iPhone App Store than it is on the iPad App Store, as… → Read More
Toronto’s 500px got its popular photo sharing iPhone app back on the iTunes App Store today, following a takedown that Apple said stemmed from multiple user complaints about pornographic material. The app returns with an age-gate warning, advising that the content in the app is for 17+ audiences, and also adds a new “Report Photo” button to help users quickly tag things they find offensive for… → Read More
While Apple hasn’t made a peep yet about Vine’s slight porn problem, the App Store has removed the video-sharing app from its Featured Section.
The app launched on Thursday, and found itself in the Featured section of the App Store by Friday. Since, it’s swung to the top of Social in the App Store, and has climbed to the number four free app overall.
But this morning, many new Viners woke… → Read More
Vine was just released yesterday as Twitter’s new standalone video-sharing iOS app. It lets users thread together tiny clips into one looping six-second video, with a UI very similar to Instagram’s.
The app expectedly made a splash with early adopters in the tech world and has seemed to gain momentum in the past 24 hours, becoming the top free app in the App Store’s Social category. It’s also… → Read More
A new year-end report from mobile analytics firm and ad network adeven reveals that the iOS App Store will be growing along the lines of its current steady rate, to add over 435,000 new apps to its massive catalog in 2013. That’s an increase from around 380,000 apps released in 2012, adeven says. That will likely exacerbate the discovery situation, which is made clear by a separate study by mobile… → Read More
Apple and Amazon are fighting over made up words, as you may well be aware. Apple takes issue with Amazon’s use of “Appstore,” the name for the online retailer’s marketplace of Android software, which came after Apple had already been using its own App Store branding for a mobile apps market for a couple of years. A judge now says that before the issue actually goes to trial in August, the two… → Read More
Remember all of this hoopla over Facebook’s latest standalone app, Poke, yesterday? You aren’t the only one that is interested, apparently. As The Next Web reports, Poke by Facebook has hit the No. 1 free app spot on Apple’s App Store, just a day after being released. → Read More
Update: Apple has removed the offending apps, the company told me via email. Holiday downloaders are now safe from this attempted scam.
A couple of new apps that just hit the iOS App Store ahead of the annual App Store holiday freeze are not what they appear to be. Masquerading as official Halo 4 ports for Apple’s mobile devices, these are actually a pretty lame racing game and an adequate… → Read More
The apps gold-rush has resulted in the majority of riches being concentrated in a few developers’ hands: analyst house Canalys says just 25 developers accounted for half of app revenue on the two dominant U.S. app stores, Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play, over a 20-day period last month. Between them, they accrued $60 million from paid-for downloads and in-app purchases over this period. → Read More
App Store advertising firm adeven today unveiled a new tool for its apptrace mobile analytics platform, which provides sentiment analysis for the App Store’s 24 million reviews. The free service lets users check out any title available on the App Store and see how user reviews score it in terms of three key criteria: positive feedback, addictiveness and crash complaints. → Read More
Ninety-nine cents here, a buck-ninety-nine there — that’s what were used to spending when Apple introduced the App Store after the iPhone was launched. It was probably one of the most genius software and developer coups in the history of mobile computing. I mean that. By creating the App Store, Apple created thousands, and perhaps millions, of jobs and an all-new form of entertainment and… → Read More
According to a new report from mobile app analytics firm App Annie, Google’s Play software store is gaining on rival Apple’s iOS app marketplace. The revenue gulf between the two stores is often cited as a reason why Apple is able to attract more top-tier developers and quality titles, so a lessening of the gap between the two in that respect is particularly significant. → Read More
The Apple Maps controversy cooled down over the last few weeks (though it got a bit of a replay when Scott Forstall’s exit/ouster from Apple was announced last week), but one question still remains: when will Google launch its native Google Maps app for iOS? According to a new report in the The Guardian, Google plans to have the app finished by the end of the year – something we also heard in… → Read More
You may know GetJar as the largest independent, cross-platform app store, and one of the largest distributors of Android apps outside of the Android Market. With more than 2 billion downloads and some 150K+ applications, the company continues to grow. This is thanks in part to its “open” model, which allows third-party app makers to distribute apps for most of the major mobile platforms. Getting… → Read More
Hurricane Sandy has clearly taken its toll on the East Coast. At least 7.4 million homes and businesses are without power this morning across seven states. Public transit has been shut down in New York City, along with the Nasdaq and NYSE. Frankenstorm has truly been unprecedented, and so, unprecedented changes are to follow in the tech world.
For example, the top three apps in the Apple App… → Read More
Apple continues to go global with its App Store ambitions: the company has made eight additions to the list of supported currencies. The new currencies are the Russian Ruble, Turkey’s Lire, India’s Rupee, Indonesia’s Rupiah, Israel’s New Shekel, Saudi Arabia’s Riyal, South Africa’s Rand, and United Arab Emirates’ Dirham. The additions came after developers were told earlier in the week that iTunes… → Read More
Today, at Apple’s event at the California Theater in San Jose, the company provided another update on growth of its App Store. The store now hosts 700,000 applications, with 275,000 designed specifically for iPad. That latter number refers not just the apps that “work” on the iPad (they all do), but those which offer an iPad native version that takes advantage of the device’s larger screen. → Read More
Some interesting new stats from a study shared with us by Russian consulting firm Empatika provide a picture of how some of the most popular apps in Apple’s App Store are reviewed, and what strategies seem to work best in securing positive feedback. App reviewers rating the top apps seem to want to share only positive things, and often, a review’s words don’t match its star rating. → Read More
Apple recently changed its developer guidelines to indicate that it might not be so happy with apps that essentially replicate what the App Store already provides, in terms of providing lists of apps to buy. But another change in iOS 6 pointed out by a developer contact suggests that Apple definitely does want to encourage developers to help it sell mobile software: a new object available… → Read More
One of the things that I usually end up doing at a bar, either after a few drinks or massive boredom, is discuss my latest favorite iOS apps. You know what I’m talking about, a bunch of nerds sitting around a few adult beverages with bright screens flickering. I’ll usually say something stupid like “What do you think about the new Facebook update?” Lame, maybe. Fun, yes. → Read More
Apple has changed its iOS developer guidelines, adding a clause (on September 12, a source tells me) that reads: “Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected.” That’s a change that could have wide-reaching effects, especially on promotion models that offer developers a paid top slot on app… → Read More
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